News Headlines

A message from our Director

There is so much talk about the global economy and whether climate change is as bad as they say. Whatever view people take on it, everyone knows the current system isn’t sustainable and needs improving and one of the best things about what we do at BioRegional is we can just get on with it.

We are working with some great partners who have committed to achieve one planet living for themselves and their clients and customers and, as you will see throughout this newsletter, together we are getting results.

In the London Borough of Sutton we are starting to crack the problem of how to carry out low carbon energy retrofits cost effectively and how to reconnect our food supply to our bioregion.

With its One Planet Home product range B&Q is now making it really easy and cost effective to give your home an eco-makeover. And B&Q is walking the talk having managed to reduce the CO2 emissions from its own operations by a massive 16% in two years. Together we are now reviewing just how B&Q can get firmly on a trajectory to achieve the 90% carbon savings we all need to achieve. And it makes good business sense too. Parent group Kingfisher beat profit forecasts and raised dividends in March, helped by sales of eco-products topping £1 billion for the first time.

We’ll keep working with our partners to show what a low carbon, one planet future will be like, sharing what we learn. We’ll keep in touch and we’d love to hear about what you are doing too.
Sue Riddlestone

First One Planet Borough begins to bear fruit… and veg

Great things are happening in the London Borough of Sutton. The One Planet Sutton initiative which aims to create a truly sustainable borough by 2020, has launched three local food projects and two new energy saving schemes.

The Veg Van is bringing locally and regionally grown produce to an area of the borough that is a fresh
produce desert, the 3 hectare Sutton Community Farm is providing community growing space in a
supported environment and healthy eating and food growing training is travelling out to schools and community groups.
www.bioregional.co.uk/what-we-do/our-work/one-planet-food-sutton

For green homes, as part of the government’s Retrofit for the Future competition, three homes in the London Borough of Sutton will get the green treatment. One will be transformed into a super eco-home and see energy use slashed by 80%, one gets improved to the national decent homes standard, while all three will have expert advice on adopting eco-behaviours from a ‘green coach’. The households will be monitored over two years and the results will inform local and national housing policy. www.bioregional.co.uk/news-views/news/retrofitforthefuture

In our last newsletter we told you that the Pay As You Save (PAYS) scheme was launching in Sutton as part of a wider government initiative. Households are given interest free loans to make environmental upgrades on their homes, with monthly instalments costing less than the savings that they make on bills. We are very happy to report that the scheme has been a massive success. The deal was snapped up by 100 households and the improvements are being installed. We will report the results back in future newsletters.
www.bioregional.com/news-views/news/pay-as-you-save

Want to green your home? new service is just on your high street

You may know that we have a partnership with B&Q to green its operations and product range. B&Q's most recent innovation is its new eco shops; these shops within a shop make it easy for customers to find eco products by compiling them all into one area. The first of these are within the New Malden and Sutton stores, and 63 more will follow by the autumn.

And to complement the eco shops new eco advisers will be on hand to advise customers on One Planet Home products for their homes and eco experts will be qualified to offer in-store and at home consultations, and provide homeowners with an Energy Performance Certificate to understand how their home performs. Both eco advisers and eco experts have started in the Sutton and New Malden stores, with the eco adviser role being rolled out across the UK by September.

And B&Q has recently improved it’s on line help; there’s a particularly useful interactive house where you can see how to green your home, and timely advice on how to grow your own and attract nature into your garden.
www.diy.com/oneplanethome

BioRegional Quintain's next generation One Planet Communities going strong

At what will be the UK’s largest zero carbon community, BioRegional Quintain’s Riverside One community in Middlesbrough; work has begun on the first residential block – Community In A Cube or CIAC. BQL’s Managing Director Pete Halsall said “This place will transform Middlehaven. It is also about providing somewhere that will be a great place to live”. “We are confident the start of the project will catalyze more development both in the Riverside One scheme and in the wider Middlehaven context.”
www.riverside-one.com

Missed us at EcoBuild? download our presentations

We were really pleased to welcome Kevin McCloud to the One Planet Living workshop on 2nd March, where he gave an entertaining talk to a packed room about how he is using the One Planet Living framework at his HAB sustainable housing development in Swindon.

If you missed us at the expo you can download the presentation slides from our web site at www.bioregional.co.uk/news-views/news/ecobuild2010

New tools help you get on board with one planet living

Ecotowns seek lessons from BedZED

Empowering Resident Associations to green their communities

We have been running workshops with Resident Association members in Waltham Forest, north London, to help them reduce their eco-impacts and save money.

The free workshops, funded by Waltham Forest Council, helped to empower participants to take straightforward, practical actions; focusing on reducing energy from heating and appliances in the home. We also equipped them to help others, such as friends and members of their associations, understand climate change and energy efficiency.

Our behaviour change experts used effective methods such as asking participants to make and sign pledges for their chosen actions, which were witnessed by friends, and sending them home with freebies to allow them to start taking action straight away. Take a look at our free tools to help you green your own lifestyle and group.

Helping to make wood a reliable energy option

BioRegional’s energy team has been helping local authorities in the UK to use biomass as a reliable renewable energy supply. The team has recently begun The London TreeStation Project which aims to increase demand for woodfuel and improve the quality and quantity of woodfuel produced in and around London.

As part of the project, BioRegional will be offering free biomass support to London’s local authorities. Jude Hassall who is managing the project said “at the moment there are relatively few biomass boiler installations in and around London; this project will help bridge the gap between grants for boilers and grants for chippers, addressing the current lack of demand by supporting potential end users to install boilers while ensuring that there is a sustainable supply of woodfuel available to them”.

In the West Midlands, the team has been working with Herefordshire Council to develop a woodfuel supply chain action plan. Recommendations included recruiting a renewable energy officer within the council to support and co-ordinate renewable energy projects and activities, and installating a biomass heating system in a council owned property to demonstrate the technology and the council’s commitment.

Amy Hammond who managed the project said “this project has produced a clear set of achievable actions to enable the Council to start a woodfuel initiative that will result in more boiler installations and the production of woodfuel from sustainable woodland management. This will help to meet its environmental targets under the National Indicator programme, create jobs and bring more woodlands back into management, supporting local biodiversity”.

For further information on any of our projects, to find out how we can help you, contact naomi.durkan@bioregional.com or visit our web site

Having a BBQ? give those firelighters a miss

We are still planning to scale up production by using larger scale plant and hope to be able to tell you more in our
summer e-newsletter.

Want to hear more? BioRegional is presenting at...

15th April 2010, 9am - 10.30am
Skoll Forum
Oxford, Saïd Business School
As part of this three day forum (14th - 16th April) for sustainable entrepreneurs BioRegional's Director, Sue Riddlestone, will present: Structuring Collaboration: Mergers, Partnerships and New Business Models.
Sue will explore how social entrepreneurs are inventing new ways to collaborate with a diversified range of partners. This session will share three successful approaches that have led to sustainable scale: merging two social ventures as a means for collaboration and growth; partnering with government, private sector, banks and end-users, and shaping sustainable development practices through new business models such as spin-offs structured for growth and leverage.
www.skollworldforum.com/programme-2010/programme-thursday#structuring-collaboration